


Latitudes

by cretkid



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-03-10
Updated: 2001-03-10
Packaged: 2019-05-15 16:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14794046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cretkid/pseuds/cretkid
Summary: You give the people you love some latitude.





	Latitudes

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

 

TITLE: "Latitudes" A The West Wing story by CretKid aka Cal  
CATEGORY: General (post episode story for "Someone's Going to Emergency,  
Someone's Going to Jail")  
RATING: PG  
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Nuff said.  
Summary: You give the people you love some latitude.

  


"Latitudes" by CretKid  
========================================

"So, did you find Brigadoon?"

CJ glowered as she shrugged out of her coat. For good measure, she threw  
it over Josh's head before she slid into the opposite side of the booth.  
Noticing Toby at the bar, she moved around the curved bench so that she  
was near the head of the table. "I hate Big Block of Cheese Day."

Josh pulled the offending garment off and placed it over the back of the  
booth along with his own overcoat. "C'mon, your cheese task was so much  
more entertaining than anyone else's. Though, when the crowd started  
throwing food at Toby, things did get a little interesting."

"If I ever have to look at another map ever again, I am going to scream."  
CJ planted an elbow on the table top and propped her head up under her  
chin.

"It was entertaining."

"It was freaking me out. I don't deal with change well."

"That's an understatement."

"Hey!" She swiped at his shoulder blade with her free hand.

"You said it, not me."

"That doesn't mean you have to agree with me, you nitwit."

Josh slid a little farther along the bench to get beyond her reach,  
landing in a small puddle where their jackets were draped. "Augh, why is  
your coat wet?"

"It's raining."

"You walked?"

"Didn't you?"

"Well, yeah, 'cause my car is at home. But you drove this morning. And it  
wasn't raining when I got here. So why didn't you drive here?"

"I got lost on Dupont Circle this morning. Again. I hate detours. I vowed  
never to drive in this town again."

"That's why you need a map."

"If I had the energy right now, you would not be sitting so cheery over  
there, my friend."

"The question is, which projection would be best suited to your  
particular needs?"

"Do you have a death wish?"

"Apparently so. But I've decided that I will no longer be Toby's wing  
man. He can go tilting at his own windmills from now on."

"Okay. That made no sense."

"Guess you had to be there. Speaking of windmills--"

Toby stood at the end of the table, a pitcher of beer in one hand and a  
handful of glasses in the other. He passed all the glassware to CJ and  
proceeded to slide in next to her. "For that remark, you can get your  
own."

"I was kidding."

"I'm not."

"I took a banana for you."

"Take it and split."

"Funny. Not as funny as CJ getting lost while driving to work this  
morning, but it ranks right up there."

Toby turned in his seat to find CJ pounding her head on the table. "You  
got lost on Dupont again?"

"Is there an echo? Yes, I got lost on Dupont Circle. I always make the  
wrong turn on Dupont when forced to go that route. Can you get it through  
your thick skulls that the architects of this fair city had it in for me  
when they designed the roads and leave it at that?"

"Well, seeing that you do matriculate from a school system that is  
seriously considering dropping the SAT requirement for college entrance,  
I suppose we can let that slide."

CJ sat up and hoarded all the glasses with one arm.

"I brought all of those over here," Toby admonished. "Do you mean to tell  
me that you will drink from five separate glasses this evening?"

"I'm holding them hostage. When Europe moves back to its rightful place  
in the world, you can have them back."

Toby turned to Josh. "What the hell is she talking about?"

A goofy smile was plastered on Josh's face. "Manic map-makers merrily  
mess with Mercator's view of the world."

CJ's voice was muffled by the proximity of her face to the table top.  
"You've been waiting all day to say that, haven't you?"

"This stuff just comes to me. It's a gift."

Toby lifted CJ's arm and stole two of the glasses she had absconded.  
"There is a reason why you don't write speeches." He poured himself and  
Josh a beer.

"Who else is coming?" CJ asked, still not lifting her head.

"Why? Aren't we stimulating enough company?" Toby replied.

"Not by a long shot."

"Sam will probably walk over too," Josh said, looking over his shoulder.  
"Maybe we should get out a map-- Ow!" He leaned over the table in  
momentary pain, grabbing his knee in the process.

Toby grabbed the back of CJ's collar and gently pulled her to a sitting  
position. "CJ, hands on the table where I can see them." He snagged a  
fork from her hand. "To bed with you without supper."

"Promises, promises. Where's Donna?"

"She didn't come with you?" Josh looked over his shoulder again, making  
sure to snag the silverware within his reach.

"No. She dropped by my office after you did to make sure I was coming  
here. She wasn't in the bull pen by the time I had finished checking the  
wires."

"How about Sam?" Toby handed CJ a beer.

"He was still on the phone."

"'Kay, I'm going to call him." Josh started to push himself out of the  
booth.

Toby planted one foot against Josh's bench to prevent him from escaping.  
"No, you won't. Leave him be. He'll get here when he's ready."

"'Kay. But he's wasting valuable drinking time." Josh picked up his beer.  
==========================================

Donna stood outside the West Wing entrance, waiting under the eaves to  
avoid as much of the steady drizzle as possible. Tomorrow it would  
probably snow. She'd take rain over snow any day. Rain meant it was warm.  
Warm and wet she could handle. Cold and wet were another story. Wisconsin  
provided more than its fair share of that sort of thing.

She had decided to wait for Sam, walk with him over to the bar to meet  
the others. Her mother always said that she had a penchant for lost  
causes. Not that she saw Sam as a lost cause or anything, but there was  
something to be said for the look in his eyes when she saw him in his  
office after Stephanie left. She had always been a sucker for liquid blue  
eyes, the defeated shoulder slump compounded by hands stuffed and trapped  
in trouser pockets. It was enough to make even the surest, most  
put-together man seem like the smallest little boy in all the world.

Before leaving, she had passed by his office one last time. He had the  
phone clenched to one ear, his head held in his other hand. His longish  
hair was poking out at strange angles, and there was such anguish on his  
face at that moment that she was sure he would just as soon throw the  
phone than listen to whomever was on the other end of the line.

She knew a little of the situation. Josh couldn't keep a state secret if  
he had been paid to do so. The only reason why Sam's predicament had not  
been made public to the rest of the West Wing was because of her  
diligence to keep it under wraps. Of course Leo knew. However, she did  
manage to strap Josh into his chair and implore upon him the need to  
cease and desist any more talk of Sam's father, no matter how innocently  
the topic may have come up in conversation. She had the power to make his  
life a living hell, and he knew it. The threat would only last for so  
long, but it would be long enough for Sam to get things straight in his  
own mind. Sam's family problems were his own affair and no one else's.

Though, since she did have proprietary information, she still felt the  
need to play Florence Nightengale to Sam's wounded soul, despite her  
advice to her own boss.

In the time she had known Sam Seaborn, it took a lot to light the fuse to  
his anger. Self-righteous and naïve to a fault, it was a blow to his ego  
when things happened that went against his thought grain. And when that  
happened, when he felt there was something that he could have done to  
prevent it from happening in the first place, it wasn't a pretty picture.  
The self-assured confident man they had all come to know and admire  
turned into a brooding, unhappy shell until he had a chance to get it all  
off his chest.

But he bounced back. He always bounced back. He might be licking his  
wounds for a bit, but he always came back, raring to go with a new found  
glint in his eye.

She'd seen him mad. She'd seen him furious. She'd never seen him that  
profoundly sad before though. Not even when his fiance left him shortly  
after the Illinois primary.

She sensed rather than saw the entrance to the West Wing swing open. It  
was late on a Friday night; there weren't many people left in that part  
of the building. Sam was tucked securely inside his overcoat, collar  
drawn up to cover his ears and hands shoved deeply into his pockets. He  
seemed surprised to find her waiting for him.

"Donna."

"Hey, Sam."

"I thought you had left with the others."

"I decided to wait for you."

"You didn't need to do that."

"It was either wait, or listen to Josh's glean off Toby's glory at the  
WTO thing. You'd think that Josh handled the whole thing to listen to him  
talk."

Sam seemed to appreciate her attempt at humor. His shoulders seemed less  
tense, even through his heavy coat. "Hannigan's?"

They started to walk towards Constitution Avenue and the little corner  
bar the staff frequented. "I believe that's the general idea."

"It's raining." Sam was looking up into the sky, letting the drizzle wet  
his face without blinking or flinching.

"Yes, it is."

"And you've been waiting out here in the rain? For me? Why didn't you  
wait inside?"

"It was fine. I'd been inside all day. I wanted the fresh air."

"It's like 20 degrees out here."

"It's 38 degrees, and this is practically balmy."

"It's still cold."

"You Southern California boys are wusses. It's not cold until your breath  
freezes on your face."

They walked in silence until they reached an intersection. Sam stopped  
under the street lamp, waiting for light to change. There was no traffic,  
yet he waited for the go ahead signal. Donna stood patiently waiting for  
him. The light changed. The short bursts of sound that indicated to blind  
people it was safe to cross the street were blaring loud and clear in the  
quiet night. Sam stood, not moving, not blinking, just staring at the  
halo of light descending from above.

"Sam?"

His voice was pensive, quiet. She was afraid to move closer for fear that  
she might scare him into silence. He had already made a connection with  
her once today; she did not want to lose that tenuous bond so soon.

"How many people know?"

"Know about what?"

"My father."

"I don't know," Donna lied. When he looked at her askance, she relented  
and said, "Probably everyone. I did try to keep Josh's mouth shut. I  
really did. I even tied him to his chair for about three hours until he  
promised not to tell anyone else."

"I'm not angry with Josh." Sam continued to look up at the darkened sky.  
Even the moon was hidden from view. Donna turned her face to the sky too,  
sending passive glances his way just to make sure he was still with her.

"I would be." She sensed that his shoulders were shaking, whether from  
anger, sadness or laughter she wasn't quite sure. She wasn't sure if she  
wanted to know either. "I would be mad. He means well, but Josh has about  
as much tact as a gerbil."

"Yeah."

"It's no one else's affair. Sorry, bad choice of words. It's your private  
family business."

"Are you trying to make me mad at Josh?"

"No, I'm just saying, I would be a little more than peeved if my best  
friend blabbed that my father had an affair, no matter what his or her  
intentions were. Stephanie, from today, I once stopped talking to her for  
a solid two weeks because she repeated something I told her in confidence  
to a mutual friend."

"That's a mighty long time not to talk to your best friend."

"And we were rooming together at the time. It's my opinion if you can't  
scream at your best friend, they're not really your best friend in the  
first place."

"I'm still not mad at Josh. Josh is Josh."

"But it still peeves you."

Sam seemed to ponder her words, still gazing up at the night time sky.  
His face shone with the fine mist that had been falling. Some had  
collected on his lips and he blew it away. "Yeah."

He wiped his face with his hand, running his fingers through his hair to  
keep the bangs out of his eyes. The light had changed several times while  
they stood on the corner. He stepped off the curb to cross the street,  
but not in the direction of the bar.

"Mind if we walk a bit?" he asked. She sensed he wasn't really looking  
for permission, so she shrugged her shoulders and followed obligingly.

He was in the middle of the street when he stopped suddenly and turned  
towards her. "You know, it's not so much Josh said anything to anyone.  
It's that now everyone has their story to share with me."

A car horn blared behind her, and Sam took her elbow to guide her to the  
sidewalk. He was moving like an animal caged against its will. His paces  
made short work of the distance between intersections. They'd walked five  
blocks before he stopped again.

"Six separate people came up to me today to offer condolences and share  
their own stories of parental or spousal infidelity. I only know three of  
them."

Donna watched as he paced in front of an appliance store. A cleaning crew  
was out and about on the floor, turning off televisions and radios and  
whatnot, not the least bit paying attention to the little drama outside  
their own windows. There was a fever pitch to his motion, much like what  
she had witnessed in the stairwell.

She wondered how much she was to blame for his anguish. If she hadn't  
brought Stephanie to see him this morning, if she hadn't told her to  
stroke his ego a bit to get an audience for the executive pardon, maybe  
he wouldn't have been in such a foul mood earlier this evening. Rumor  
around the bull pen was that Sam had spent a considerable amount of time  
with Nancy McNally, the National Security Advisor, that afternoon. It was  
her fault that at least a third of his senior thesis was for naught, at  
least in his mind, now that he had the truth about Daniel Gault, a man  
that until today he had thought had been unjustly accused.

She wanted to apologize. But she had a feeling that her words would fall  
on deaf ears. He didn't want to hear sympathy; he'd just said as much. He  
wanted to-- needed to vent his frustrations. Now wasn't about her and her  
insecurities about what had happened during the day.

There was a certain sense of decorum and expectation that needed to be  
maintained, an unwritten rulebook of conduct. CJ was the calm and  
centered persona of the administration. Toby was the grounding line, the  
one to make sure no one kept their heads in the clouds for too long. Josh  
was the bull dog, the expected loose cannon. And Sam was the poetic  
prince, the one that kept the awe in their minds with wide eyed  
innocence.

It wouldn't do for him to lose it in front of the others. But he so  
desperately needed to let loose some of that emotion. Before Josh and  
Toby let him get drunk. Before he saw them at all. He needed that sense  
of decorum.

"Do I look like I need to hear about everyone else's dirty laundry? Does  
it look like I want to acknowledge that I am now part of a national  
statistic? Do I look like I want to share my woes with others by hearing  
their sob story?

"I mean, there are certain things that you don't share with anyone. There  
are certain things that should be kept private. Why the hell did he  
decided to tell my mom after 28 years? He keeps his secret for so long  
and then up and decides, 'I think I'm going start with a clean slate'.

"You give the people you love some latitude. There's always room for  
mistakes. Everyone is entitled to their fallacies, their idiosyncrasies,  
the things that make us human. That doesn't give anyone the right to  
betray a trust. It's not like I could have forgiven him if this was a one  
time fling or anything, but this went on for 28 years!

"There are things you're supposed to be able to depend on. The fact that  
your father will always read you to sleep. That your mom will always have  
cookies or celery sticks waiting for you when you get home from school.  
That there will always be someone to chase the monsters away from under  
your bed. And that your dad is YOUR dad and is married to YOUR mom and no  
one else's mom and isn't DAD to anyone else that you don't know about the  
minute they are born!"

He was still pacing, taking a moment of time to read the closed  
captioning on one of the larger television sets. CNN was airing coverage  
of the WTO protests. Most of them were exterior shots of the protestors  
and the traffic entanglements the protests caused in general. "Weren't  
there any cameras in Toby's meeting?"

Donna wasn't sure how to take his sudden change of subject. All the anger  
that had been oozing from his motions and his voice seemed to ebb away in  
an instant. She smiled, remembering CJ and Toby's exchange in the  
Roosevelt Room that morning. "Ah, no. But that's a story I'll save for  
Josh to tell. He's been dying to tell it to someone all day that wasn't  
in the room."

Sam was laughing. She took that to be a good sign. He was looking around  
the block, trying to get his bearings. "Where the hell are we?"

"Don't ask CJ. Maps and cartographers are not her friends right now." She  
took his arm and turned back in the direction from which they came. She  
still held onto him as they made their way towards the bar.

Their pace was leisurely, despite the inclement weather. The bar was  
really not that far away. As they drew closer, Sam slowed their walk.

"I called him. He wanted to apologize. I wouldn't let him. Was that wrong  
of me?"

"I don't think I have an answer for that, Sam."

"I wanted to know why. Why exactly for what, I'm not sure."

"Are you sure you haven't had anything to drink yet?"

Sam smiled. "Yeah, I guess I should get that out of my system before I  
see Toby, huh?"

"That would probably be a smart idea. Shall we find out how everyone  
else's Cheese Day went?"

"It was Big Block of Cheese Day?"

"Oh, you missed quite a lot the last few days." Donna dragged him towards  
the door, confident his spirits were a little better than before.

"Ready?"

Sam took a deep breath and opened the door for her. "Let the games  
begin."

END

====================  
CretKid aka Calvin aka Calhoun


End file.
